


Resolution

by SylphofScript



Series: Everyday I'm Drabblin' [3]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, Mild hints of platonic Josh/Chris, Mostly just Chris and his feelings, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:32:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6444649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylphofScript/pseuds/SylphofScript
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a drabble of sorts.</p><p>Chris revisits a place he’d told himself he’d never go back to, needy for a feeling of resolution and acceptance he’s sure he can’t get from anywhere else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resolution

Bitter cold. Shaking hands. Iced door handles that his gloves stuck to when he tried at them, the key sliding into the lock with difficulty and then refusing to resurface into the chilling air, attempting to claim the keyhole it now nestled in as its final resting place.

Chris grunted in frustration and wrenched it free. He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, coming back to this hellhole he’d sworn away from without having to utter a word. He didn’t know why he was standing at the door of the lift station that sat at the foot of the one mountain that had forever changed—and ruptured—his life before he had even managed to hit twenty-five; before he had even had the chance to regret where his life had taken him on his own terms, and not those set by a demonic fairytale that had escaped the books.

He didn’t know why he was enduring this bullshit; didn’t know why he was entertaining this insane endeavor he had somehow conjured up in mind. He’d said so to himself the entire trip it had taken him to get here, spent the entire time muttering and growling at himself for what he had decided to do without knowing _why the fuck he was even thinking of it in the first place_.

Except—he admitted to himself in the small voice that was often drowned in the raging of the angry ones—he did. He did know why he was there. He just wasn’t so sure he had fully accepted the reason, even as he pulled his glove free from the ice and nudged the door open, the fibers of the soft wool splintering enough to leave some of themselves behind.

He had a reason for all of this, however fragile it had seemed when he voiced it. His reason was resolution. He needed some semblance of clarity to the nightmare he had lived through the winter that had passed, on this second anniversary of the night that sparked it all into movement. He needed to know the house was burned—the demons were gone.

That he was safe. That, yes, it had happened, but he had _lived_.

Yes, okay, Chris knew he had obviously lived, the noisy chattering of his teeth that filled the cold air was more than enough to confirm, yes, he was a moron and, yes, he had managed to keep his body intact after all those outside forces had tried their best to make that situation otherwise.

But it wasn’t enough.

Was he really safe from the nightmare that had manifested in the same house he had sat in that year before the real shit had gone down, smashed to Hell and back again, to the point where he hadn’t even realized his best friend had lost his sisters until they had already been gone from his life?

Of course he was. It was a stupid question; the house had burned, the creatures had been exorcised—there had been no activity on the mountain from that point on, save for one mission that had followed their rescue. The one that had almost been too late.

He was safe, at least when he was away from here. But something about it all had still nagged him, bothered him for longer than the year that had followed.

Something in him needed more, needed to _see_ it with his own eyes. Find a scrap of physical proof for him to take and keep, to remind himself when the nightmares woke him from his sleep and kept him gasping for hours to come that it really had happened, and he really had made it out okay (or, alive, “okay” was a very relative term that really didn’t apply to any of them, even in the slightest). Something he could only get from coming back, he told himself, hating at how he felt more and more convinced each time it had crossed his mind.

He needed something to bring back.

He only hoped it would be enough.

His hands shook as he fumbled with the key again; the dusty, freezing, snowy air inside the station filled with stifling loneliness and obvious disuse. No one had bothered coming back but him, that much was obvious. He didn’t blame them. He pressed the button to call the lift and waited, watching the sunlight bounce around the glitter on the ground and knowing he’d be out of there before dark could even think about falling. (Because, if he wasn’t, he knew he’d be in more shit than he could handle, and it had nothing to do with the creatures that could possibly still be around.)

It was enough that he was there in the first place—he wasn’t about to push himself past that, nor test his friends’ wrath when he disobeyed his own word.

Ashley had called him crazy, stupid for wanting to do this. Mike had offered to join him, but Chris had known asking him to go would have been sadistic. Sam had tried to talk him out of it, Matt had begged him not to go through with it. Emily had thrown in some choice insults, worried in ways she didn’t show outright.

None of them had wanted to go back. Chris had accepted that. He hadn’t wanted to go back, either, but he needed to. He _needed_ to.

The lift came and he stepped inside, sitting down in the familiar spot with a pounding heart and a shaky sigh, pushing his glasses up his forehead as he dropped his face into his hands, unable to look around as he began the slow ascend.

God, if he died, no one would ever forgive him. That bothered him more than it should have, considering he’d already be dead. Emily had had a few choice words for that one, too.

Jessica had said nothing when she found out. She hadn’t needed to.

She hugged him the hardest when he said his goodbyes.

-

Burned. Decimated. Gone.

 _Gone_.

There was nothing left of the sprawling mansion of a lodge they had stayed in. It was a charred, haunting cradle of ash covered in a light blanket of snow that shone in the low, clean sunlight.

It wouldn’t be until later, after he had returned, that this would strike him as odd, and Mike would point out that it had been a whole year, shouldn’t there be more snow? Why was the ash still visible—the framework remains still peeking up in cruel, jagged ruins cupped in pristine white? What did that mean, how was that possible?

But right now, all he could think about were the creatures that had been out for his meat, his bones, his blood and his life. How one of them had been a friend of his at one point, how she had taken away his best friend and come back to kill the rest of them, unable to recall the bonds she had made with them before suffering a fate he wouldn’t wish on anyone.

How she had died in the explosion that Mike and Sam had set off in a final, desperate moment of preservation, saving them all from the horrors that ruled the mountain for longer than they had ever been aware of, and allowing them to see dawn once again and curl up in the safety the rising light had brought them.

Chris felt his knees shudder, buckle with memories and emotions, and the next thing he knew, they were soaking slightly with the snow that surrounded them.

He had fallen to them without realizing.

He had been too focused on what was going on in his mind. Too focused on the feeling that welled up in him, bubbling over into a choked sob that had been too quiet for the air to catch.

“Jesus,” he whispered into the chilling sunlight. “ _Jesus_.”

He cradled his face in the scratchy wool of his palms, and he wept. Just for a bit.

He had a lot to weep for, and he had been choice in his release of tears even after the initial shock had weathered into certifiable PTSD. He could count his breakdowns on his fingers, and he tallied another onto his list as he curled over into the melting cold and sobbed for all the things that deserved it.

Chris wept for Hannah, for Beth. For the life he thought he’d have, for the innocence he lost and the bravery he didn’t want. For the stranger who had given his life for Chris’. For Josh.

Josh.

Chris’ chest constricted all over again, tight and painful, and he looked up at the ruins, squinting at them through lashes of half-frozen tears like he was seeing them for the first time all over again. Like he couldn’t believe it any of it had been real, like his mind was trying to fight it off, to get away.

To accept what had happened, and to accept that it was done.

This part of the nightmare really was over. This had ended, he told himself as he wiped his face, there was no going back to it. These were the ruins of it all, this was his proof it was done. He could snap a photo and bring it back to show the others; show them that this one demon they all shared had been truly conquered and would not be coming back to get them in their sleep. They could let go of this one corner of their assaulted minds and move on to tackle the next, work slowly to rebuild themselves and live what lives they had left.

He could do this for them.

Chris pulled himself back up to his feet and turned his face up to the sky, his hands working to remove a glove and slip into his pocket to retrieve his phone. Instead, they slipped around a memento he’d kept with him the moment he’d been given it, and he pulled that out instead. Guilt flooded him as it shone in the sunlight, dented and cold. Just as significant to him as it had been that first day he’d been given it, and just as painful, just as disturbing. He curled it into his palm, allowing the metal to press into the skin hard enough to leave temporary marks, and fished for his phone with the other hand.

Mike had joked that first time it had been unveiled, told Chris in a thick, disbelieving voice to string it on a necklace so he wouldn’t lose it, even though Mike knew he wouldn’t. It had been their first true sign of hope for him, wrapped in a grimy square of torn denim; a button, dented in such a way that one of the holes caved in on itself. It had been given to all of them at once by a nurse who felt too much sympathy for the expressions they all wore that first weekend when none of them would leave the hospital and paced the halls relentlessly despite knowing patience was the only thing they needed, but couldn’t give, and then the following week Mike and Chris had almost starved themselves on shitty coffee and vending machine snacks, waiting for the word that he was in the most stable condition they could get him in.

They had treasured it the moment they had received it. It was hope that they’d all be together again one day. Hope that they’d all get through this.

Hope that this aftermath they were going through wasn’t a lost end, it was just a dented beginning.

Hope that they’d all be okay.

Chris slipped the button back into his pocket, his throat thick with emotion again. He raised up his phone with a hand that shook and took a picture, opting to show everyone in person when he returned instead of possibly catching them off guard with a mass-text that was more of a dick move than anything. Then, he pulled himself away and started back the way he had come, pushing the button at the station and sitting in the same seat, in the same direction, the sprawling depth of the mountainside looking cold, desolate, and beautiful all at once.

He didn’t look on the way back, either.

He hated it. He ached for the feelings he once felt for it and for the adventure he had thought he was going to have—awe, appreciation. Excitement.

All of that was gone. It would never come back.

And neither would he.

Chris had moved on.

There was nothing left for him here.

**Author's Note:**

> I may continue this one day, as Josh is alive in the depicted story line I used here. Not sure, though, since I'm really not sure how that would go.


End file.
